Not a Fighter, I'm a Lover
by crabbymcfanmer
Summary: This is a different take on the pokémon universe. Instead of traveling through every city and fighting gym battles, the characters own a small business and have adventures that have more to do with personal development than collecting achievements. It is set in the pokémon world but has many of the modern world technologies and popular figures.
1. Chapter 1

I'm a pokémon adventurer. Isn't that nice? But I hate all the arbitrary rules that go with being an official trainer so I do my thing unofficially and don't battle in gyms. My sister owns a rather small pet store in Viridian city. I travel to exotic places looking for pokémon with gentle character and bring them back to her so she can find good homes for them. On my most recent trip I picked up a small but very sweet furret whom I've decided to call Beau. Now I'm back home and I present him to my sister, Eunice.

"Isn't this one a cutie, Eunice? He practically crawled into my lap when I stopped for lunch."

She smiles and pets Beau in his box and comments, "He has such a lovely red color in his rings. I think I'll put him in with the girl with the gold rings in the yard and see if I get nicely colored babies from them" She muses. Eunice takes Beau out into the courtyard behind the store where the rodents are kept for display and puts him in the pen with the female furret. The girl is cautious at first and stands away from the newcomer but quickly seems to decide that there is no danger and moves closer to investigate. We watch the pair for a while to make sure they don't fight and then move to the yard's circular bench to talk.

"Did you already let your team out to rest upstairs?" She asks me. The pokémon I take with me on my trips were all brought to the store by people who wanted easy to manage pets and couldn't handle the strong ones they wound up with. I am always more than happy to give one of these misfits some training in the very least and if I can't make use of them in my own party I find someone who can.

"Yup, I let everyone out to play. They were all exhausted from the trip though and went right to sleep. Did anything exciting happen at the store while I was away?" We chat for a bit about which pokémon were taken to new homes and what new ones were brought in. Lastly Eunice tells me that her husband, Manny, is planning a trip to Pewter city with our dad to visit the museum of science.

"We should all go! It'll be so much fun and we could hire someone to watch the store for us" I exclaim.

"I've seen enough of that museum. Don't you remember that Manny and I went on our honeymoon there? And then we went again twice for vacation. But _you_ should definitely go with them; you would love all the prehistoric pokémon." She responds with a smile.

The courtyard grows more beautiful with the sunset. The staryu and starmie in the pool behind my sister and me rise to the surface of the water and let their ruby eyes glow. In the exhibit before us our resident feraligator, Khan, climbs into his pond and floats to sleep. Everyone is getting ready for the night. Eunice and I close up the rodent cages and check on the furrets before we go home for some late dinner. Eunice and Manny own the house next door to the store so I stay with them while I'm in town.

We chat over delicious pasta Eunice makes for us—I totally help make the sauce and am very proud—and my quilava, Spock, comes downstairs to sit with us. I cuddle with him and give him scritches under his chin while Eunice pets her houndour, Brynn. At some point during dinner Manny comes home and, after some catching up with us, curls up with his computer and only interjects occasionally into our conversation.

"Oh by the way, someone dropped off a really energetic tauros the other day. This boy had traded his perfectly tame raticate for a baby tauros and then couldn't handle the thing when it grew up" Eunice suddenly remembers.

"Did you offer him one of our more low maintenance pokémon as a pet?"

"Yes but he didn't seem very interested; I think the experience with the tauros had disillusioned him about pokémon care. Anyway I was hoping you could take it out with you to give it some training and look for someone who will appreciate it."

"Oh sure, just put it in the PC system and I'll pull it out when I find myself in a good area for training." I think it could be fun to have some fresh energy in the group.

Now to introduce my loyal teams. I have a total of thirteen pokémon whom I take with me on my adventures but I divide them into two teams and bring Spock with me everywhere. Team A consists of sandslash-Riddick, jigglypuff-Tal, fearow-Buzz, beedrill-Shiva, flaafy-Keanu, and gyradose-Tetris. Team B consists of geodude-Jane, pidgeotto-Macbeth, magnemite-Wrench, quagsire-Soah, butterfree-Orko, and haunter-Olivia. Both teams are always available to me through the PC system but I keep them grouped like so.


	2. Chapter 2

As the sun rises over the horizon and light dances through my curtains the sleeping pokémon begin to stir. The birds coo in their roosts above me, Olivia returns from her nightly prowl, Shiva and Orko buzz around the plant life below my window looking for fresh nectar, Tetris and Soah eat from their automatic feeders in their respective pools, Jane and Riddick dig themselves out of the dirt in the garden, and Tal, Keanu, and Spock jump off of my bed and loudly demand breakfast.

After feeding everyone(including the people) I set about my chores in the store. Eunice always handles the aquatic areas and the gardening and I'm in charge of the mammals or whatever sort of acts like a mammal in the world of Pokémon. I spend the morning cleaning cages, refilling water dishes, and socializing the pokémon. Eunice waters the garden, filters all the tanks and pools, and checks on all the aquatic pokémon. Manny sticks around for a while and pestered us until he has to go to work. Just after 10:00, a woman enters the store.

"Good morning. Is there anything I can help you with today?" I ask her.

"Yes, I hope so. I recently inherited an interesting bird pokémon from a friend who couldn't take it with him when he moved and I'm just not sure how to care for it. He said it was a 'natoo' I think."

"Ah, interesting. Well the natu is actually not very difficult to take care of and they can make wonderful pets. We stock an assortment of feed you can choose from and many enrichment devices so it won't get bored. If you have any questions I will do my best to answer them."

"That's good to know, I actually have owned birds before but never a pokémon."

"It's really not that different regarding day to day care. The important thing to remember though is that pokémon are significantly more intelligent than your average animal and often bond much more strongly with their owners."

"I noticed that it seemed very despondent after it was left with me. Is there anything I can do to cheer it up?"

"It's probably lonely; you might introduce it to some of your birds if you still have any."

"I tried that actually but it seemed to dislike the birds. I was contemplating adopting a bird pokémon to keep it company."

"Well that's a fine idea. We even have a few natu here right now. Why don't you have a look at the ones over here and tell me if you think any of them would get along with yours. My name is Minerva by the way."

"I'm Natalie. And thank you."

In half an hour I send Natalie out the door with new supplies and a new friend for her natu. The rest of the day is fairly uneventful; some customers come in for supplies and one or two kids get scared by Khan. The big old boy would never hurt anyone but he sure is intimidating. Around six o'clock I decide to clock out early and get some exercise so I call Olivia(who has been sleeping all day), the tauros Eunice mentioned, and the store's largest tentacruel-Numa.

Olivia keeps me company until we get to the beach where she flies away over the lighted city. I know that she will return in the morning and won't get into trouble during the night. In the water with Numa, I take the tauros out for a little swim to tire him out. When I feel that he'll be more manageable I instruct Numa drag up a little krabby for the tauros(I'm thinking I'll call him Ferdinand) to practice some moves on. After some lame attempts to get Ferdinand even to interact with the krabby, he finally recognizes the commands for rage and horn attack.


End file.
